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Admiral Fitzroy’s “Storm Glass”
This tool is called Admiral Fitzroy’s Storm Glass. During the 19th century Charles Darwin, among others, was using it to predict weather conditions on board of a ship. Prediction is based on the formation of the crystals contained in the water. Clear water with crystals submerged to the bottom predicts clear weather, whereas crystals floating…
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Itsy Bitsy Spider
While walking around in Roppongi Hills, if you don’t pay enough attention, you may end up in the net of a gigantic spider. Beware! Details: maman (1999), sculpture by Louise Bourgeois The artist said: […] Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. […] Like spiders, my mother was very clever. […] Spiders are helpful…
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Tokyo Olympics 2020
Japanese people love waiting in queues so much that they found a way to wait even when buying tickets online.
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A tale of an irregular juice package
There is a steady hype about delicacies in Japanese convenient stores. My discovery this week was not a sweet, but a juice in rather peculiar packaging. Meet “tropical straight 100”. Ignoring my initial reaction (that was something along the lines of “are they selling prepackaged blood serum for vampires now?“), this is actually a juice…
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Bontan Candy (ボンタンアメ)
Lately, I came across a strange citrus flavoured candy with an interesting twist, as expected from japanese sweets. Bontan candy is a mochi-chewy style square candy with pomelo and mandarin flavour. The candy comes in a small paper box and each candy piece is covered with transparent wrap. However hard you try to unwrap the…
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紙で結ぶ絆: A letter set for building relationships
NTT is a ginormous company in Japan, with research facilities and factories all around the country. One of their employees gave our laboratory the following gift: a handmade letter set made from Japanese paper (washi or 和紙). This letter set was made with great care at an NTT factory called 塩山 or “salt mountain”, whose purpose…
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